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Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Coach Nutter

These days I seem to spend most of my time on the Megabus.

I can't believe it was almost two weeks ago that I was travelling down to Bristol, once again nominating myself as the Coach Nutter, trying to stop the driver from leaving the service station by standing up and yelling (in a strong Manc accent that surprised even me):
"Are we leeevin? Are we goin? We've left that wumun an' er babeh!"

The woman and the baby were sat at the back of the bus, looking at me with wide eyes, along with all the other passengers on the coach.

After my initial outburst, I had to stand up every time we stopped, to ask everyone if we were at Bristol yet. By the time the answer was finally 'yes, please get off our bus', it was pitch black outside and pouring down with rain, which kind of shat all over my plan of walking to the Gothic Mansion...

Wait.

Did I tell you about the Gothic Mansion?

When I was at Secret Garden Party, two of OJ and TC's friends invited me to go to the Gothic Mansion for their Farewell Leaving Party Weekend- they're moving to Ghana in a few weeks. On the Friday night, one half of the couple proposed to his other half (don't know why but feel a bit paranoid about naming anybody at the moment) in front of us all.

Thankfully she said yes, otherwise it would have been a loooong weekend.

It was a very theatrical moment- people were crying and cheering, everybody was dressed in sequins or shiny leggings and the bride to be was wearing a white feathery headdress, made especially for her by somebody in on the secret... They are a group that loves fancy dress. The whole weekend was full of super heroes and ninjas, jelly fish, giant headdresses that lit up with tiny, battery-operated light bulbs and lots and lots of glitter.

One night I danced for about ten hours straight in the basement which became a club for the weekend. That club was MY club- often it was just me in there on my own, dancing to the beats of an African Queen called Wesley. It was nice when other people came in to dance as well, but I did enjoy having my own personal club, all to myself. It confirmed my suspicions that clubs would be so much better if there were no bouncers and no other patrons.

I did go through my standard Sinister Phase on Sunday evening, where I slithered about on the edge of sanity for a while, convinced I'd done something terrible and that everybody hated me... That dark cloud called Sinister always comes after a long weekend of raving and I fall for it, every time. It's such a shame because it plagues the whole weekend, casting a shadow over what would have otherwise been three days of pure ravey fun. Next time, I swear down, I'll be ready for the Sinister Phase and I won't let it consume me and turn me into a paranoid psychopath. The next time it happens I'm going to take myself off to bed, instead of staying up and trying to rave through it.

But.

I do always manage to rave through it.

After the weekend, somebody invited me to go to Notting Hill Carnival. I've always wanted to go and I was going to London anyway for two days of nannying, so off we went and the rave continued. At the end of the day we met up with some other people that had been at the Gothic Mansion and everybody was congratulating me on my non-stop dancing. I felt a bit guilty because they obviously hadn't seen me stalking around under my Sinister Cloud on Sunday.

I think I might just have got away with it.

On our way back from Carnival, we got stuck in a lift at the tube station so I told somebody to pull the Emergency Alarm and found that the repetitive ringing was very easy to dance to. It was at this point that I had to wonder, 'Have I become a cliche of myself?'

The nannying job was so easy I felt like I was in a rave-induced dream. I spent two days near Sloane Square with a very posh mummy and her two delightful children- we went to the park, we visited Battersea Zoo and I spent hours with the little girl playing 'The Game Where We Pretend We Haven't Seen Each Other For A Year' which is a lot more complicated than it sounds. At one point I found myself alone with the two year old boy and he was playing some tunes on his toy keyboard and I was bopping about and it was like I'd never left that basement in Bristol...

For my trouble I got ten quid an hour which I used to fund this week's trip to London, which has proved more fruitful than any of the others. I've got a trial shift at a very nice Japanese restaurant in a couple of hours. Oh there's so many more little stories I wanted to tell you, I went to a Christening in Liverpool on Sunday and the baby and her mum had TWO outfit changes and there were professional photographers and girls in church wearing hot pants, platforms and fringed kimonos. No, I wasn't one of them.

The next morning I had to get a taxi to the coach station and I didn't know where the Megabus went from in Liverpool, so my taxi driver let me use the internet on his phone. He kept telling me off for not being more organised and he said he was worried about me, so he waited with me to make sure I got on the bus.

This is why I love every taxi driver I meet, even if they are old and bald.

This one was quite young though...

Stop it.

I have to mention somebody who I spent some very meaningful time with at Secret Garden Party. He told me in Bristol that he can't believe I didn't mention him in my blog, after our Special Bonding. His Secret Blog Name is Ariel because he like to dress up as The Little Mermaid, although he also wears a suit sometimes that looks it's made of liquid mercury.

5 comments:

Pleased things are lining up for you - I've also had a difficult summer of trials and interviews and lots of applications upon returning from Paris and have finally been offered a job, but I won't be overjoyed until I've actually started and been there a bit as I think I need to transition out of this stressful summer gently!

I think it's great you're doing what you want to do and giving London a shot, you survived in Paris for 3 years successfully and you arrived without the language so I'm sure a city with your native language won't be as hard!

Fingers crossed for the fancy Japanese restaurant! When you're settled would be great to meet for a drink again :)